England news - Ian Bell on his poor Test form

By Paul Bolton

    Ian Bell has spoken about his determination to put a torrid winter against spin bowling behind him. Bell made just 134 runs in the three Tests against Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates and two in Sri Lanka, and was particularly troubled by Pakistan off-spinner Saeed Ajmal who snared him four times in six innings.

    Opting to return to county action against Lancashire today, a week earlier than his Warwickshire and England team-mate Jonathan Trott, Bell said: “When things aren’t going for you, you find weird ways of getting out and you think things are against you.

    “I have been in these places before where I haven’t scored runs that I can look back on, like the West Indies three years ago where I got dropped. That period of six months out of the side was hard work but I came through that.

    “It won’t be through lack of effort and working hard. You have got to believe that if you keep working hard things will change and hopefully this summer I will be back to scoring runs. Whether you score runs or not, I don’t think anything changes. The game doesn’t change, your talent doesn’t change, what you have done in the past doesn’t change.

    “I went to Abu Dhabi having scored 235 in my previous Test. My first innings in Abu Dhabi was a first baller. So whatever happens at Lord’s and the first ball there, whatever has gone is gone. Whether it’s a good series or a bad series you move on. Sport moves on so quickly, especially in cricket. We have so many series coming up. We have a massive summer coming up but subcontinent-wise we have India in eight months' time. If we can win in India people won’t remember Abu Dhabi.”

     Bell was not the only England batsman to struggle against Pakistan where they had only two warm-up matches to prepare for pitches that were different in character to those they might have encountered in Pakistan.

    The ECB has acknowledged that English players need more practice against spinners in sub-continental conditions and Bell has welcomed the initiative of sending some of England’s best young players abroad during the winter months to acclimatise in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and India.

   “We want to move forward. That’s where we have to get better. Collectively as a batting unit we want to get better on the sub-continent. That’s the one thing that can take us to another level,” Bell said. “We play well at home, we generally play well around the world apart from the sub-continent. There is no England team that ever dominated in the sub-continent but we want to get better individually and as a team in those conditions.

    “The ECB is spending a lot of time sending youngsters to the sub-continent, some of them played first-class cricket in Sri Lanka which is a fantastic idea. It’s a different style of cricket. They will understand that they use Kookaburra ball rather than Dukes, how they look after the ball, plus different ways of attacking and different thoughts on the game. It’s great to learn different skills and different ways of playing the game.”


Date: 19/04/2012 11:58:17 by MBaldwin
In: Warwickshire | Today | England |